Causes of sudden death - autopsy review in a tertiary referral center

Background: The incidence of sudden death has been increasing steadily all over the worldparticularly in the urban population for the last 5 years. World health organization [WHO] hasdefined sudden death as “Death within 24 hrs from the onset of symptoms”. It can be defined asdeaths that are sudden, unexpected, clinically unexplained, or otherwise obscure even though thereneed to be no unnatural element in their causation. Materials and methods: Complete analysisand review of all autopsy/post-mortem specimens received in the Department of Pathology, KIMS,Hubballi between September 2017 to June 2019 done to find out the cause of death. Results:During the study period, a total of 153 cases of sudden death were received, age ranged from 6months to 72 years, with male preponderance. The cause of death were, 67 cases - cardiac causes[43.7%], 15 cases- respiratory causes [9.8%], 7 cases of sepsis [4.5%], 6 cases of Miliary TB[3.9%], CNS- 5 cases [3.2%], Hepatobiliary [2.6%], Renal- 2 cases [1.3%], Gastrointestinal 2cases [1.3%] Malignancy – 1 case [0.65%], Inconclusive 44 - cases [ 28.7%]. Conclusion: Thisstudy concludes that sudden death can occur at any age with the most common cause being cardiacdiseases and few among these are preventable. Therefore, creating awareness about the risk factorsand prevention of disease progression can reduce the incidence of sudden deaths.